How Obergefell, the Supreme Court Decision that Forced All Fifty States to Recognize Same-Sex Marriage, Changed Everything

The Real Reason Society Is Unraveling, Part 2

The family is the bedrock of our society. Unless we protect it with the institution of marriage, our country will fall.
—Rick Santorum, in 2011—

Key points: Do you sometimes wonder why the country is going crazy, denying the obvious, promoting falsehoods, and calling good evil and evil good? While America has been headed in the direction for several decades, in 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling that denied a reality that couldn’t be more obvious, promoted the ultimate falsehood, and, in the name of “equality,” upheld the lie that a terrible evil was instead a beneficial good. (The 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton run a very close second.) That ruling, Obergefell, didn’t just redefine marriage; it effectively redefined everything!

You can access all the articles in this series from this page.

Last time we talked about how transgenderism is ruining women’s sports. Certain individuals who are born male and have competed in men’s athletics are claiming to be uncomfortable in their male bodies. Some of them have taken the step of “identifying” as women, and some of those are invading the arena of women’s athletics. Not surprisingly, they consistently are winning, since they still have physical advantages over women.

We also highlighted the important work of Alliance Defending Freedom in the movement to preserve the rights of women in the arena of athletics. It’s interesting that Caitlyn Jenner — who, in 1976, as Bruce Jenner, was named by the Associated Press as Male Athlete of the Year — has spoken publicly against male-to-female transgenders competing in women’s athletics. Jenner transitioned in 2015.

Significantly, a meme showcasing an image of Batman has been making the rounds on social media. It reads,

EVER NOTICE YOU DON’T HAVE WOMEN TRANSITIONING INTO MEN AND TRYING TO COMPETE IN MEN’S SPORTS…

Clearly, the men who are doing this are confused, but they are not victims (except of the lies they have been led to believe and have chosen to believe). On so many levels, this reveals just how much of an upside-down, bizarre society we have become. So does the fact that in the name of compassion, everyone is encouraged to validate the feelings of men-transitioning-to-women-and-competing-in-women’s-sports. Further, the narrative insists on validation for women-transitioning-to-men as well. Thankfully, not everyone, and not every state (also go here,) is buying the narrative. Still, we have a long way to go. We are in a very perilous place.

Despite the narrative, I’m compelled to tell you the truth. It never can be right, nor can it ever be compassionate, to participate in or to promote a lie. As Seth Dillon, CEO of the satirical online publication The Babylon Bee has declared, “It is morally wrong to affirm another person’s delusion.” There’s not a shred of satire in that statement, I assure you!

It is morally wrong to affirm another person’s delusion.
—Seth Dillon—

A Symptom — Not the Core Problem

While the transgender movement certainly is creating a great many problems for individuals and society, in may ways it, like so much else that is wrong in our culture, is symptomatic of a larger problem. In our last post we identified the core problem as radical autonomy. Radical autonomy, as Francis Schaeffer put it, is “autonomous freedom, cut loose from all constraints. Here we have the world spirit of our age—autonomous Man setting himself up as God, in defiance of the knowledge and the moral and spiritual truth which God has given.”

In the same article we cited last time by Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm on the invasion of female athletics by men-pretending-to-be-women. Mr. Backholm also offered these disturbing yet profound observations:

It’s helpful to remember how we got here. Ten short years ago, same-sex marriage was illegal in most places, but the campaign to legalize it was going strong. At that time, few were claiming boys can become girls. In fact, the movement mocked the idea that same-sex marriage diminished the two halves of humanity in any way. They said this was just about the freedom to “be who you are” and “love who you love.”

Two things happened during the national debate over marriage that the Penn women’s swim team would do well to think about. First, our society embraced the idea that living “authentically” is the greatest thing a person can do. Second, we accepted the notion that the differences between men and women weren’t significant enough for the law to be concerned about.

Embracing Lies, Even Those that Make Us Feel Good, Leads to Destruction

Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 declare forthrightly, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” This is a path worth taking, a person or a society might sincerely believe. It’s a path that offers great benefits. Yet, however alluring the road of radical autonomy may appear, “its end is the way of death.” Similarly, the New Testament warns against following the path that nearly everyone else is taking.

Let’s state it in unmistakable terms. The two ideas Joseph Backholm highlights in his article adorn both sides of the road of radical autonomy. This road is enticing and attractive, but it is leads to destruction. What “seems right” feels right, and it also makes people and society feel good. Americans have been deceived. The good feelings may be a part of the journey, but of what benefit are they if travelers arrive at an indescribably horrible place and cannot retrace their steps?

America’s Founders Embraced Reality and Enjoyed the Freedoms It Offers

Our society has traded the reality of the obvious — and the liberty that comes with cooperating with it — for lies that give rise to counterfeit feelings of “authenticity” and “compassion.” We are on a very different path than the one on which America’s Founders set this country at its inception. It is no accident that when they declared the Colonies independent of Great Britain on July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers appealed to

- - - “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,”
    - “truths” they held to be “self-evident,” and
    - inherent, God-given “unalienable rights.”

John Trumbull / The Declaration of Independence

They spoke using language rooted in reality and in a recognition of reality.¹ Our ancestors did not live in the “fantasyland” to which many in modern America have moved.

In this You Tube video from CrossPolitic (embedded at the end of this article), guest David Fowler of the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT) discusses the legal foundation upon which America’s Founders established the United States in and through the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and (especially pertinent to this discussion), the Bill of Rights. Simply reading the Declaration reveals these men affirmed a standard of values and truth that existed apart from them and even pre-existed government, including the government they eventually would formulate as they relied on these tenets to guide them.

It’s important to know that Mr. Fowler makes his statements in the context of a discussion about the Bill of Rights (the first ten constitutional amendments) and the Ninth Amendment in particular. The first eight amendments named specific rights belonging to the people, but the Founders wanted it clear that other rights existed, even though they hadn’t been named explicitly. The Ninth Amendment states,

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Now, hear Mr. Fowler in this 3-minute clip:

A short time later in this same video, Mr. Fowler illustrates the common law and explains its origins. Simply put, common law is case law based on an external, objective standard of ethics and morality. For the purpose of brevity, I left out of the following clip most of what Mr. Fowler said about case law, which we’ll examine next time. Here I retained what he said about God’s law — the external, moral and ethical standard by which specific cases were determined. I encourage you to watch the complete video. Still, here, in this brief, 3-minute clip, is the gist — a concise summary.

Defying Reality and the God Who Created it

Now, recall with me the two ideas that Joseph Backholm stated the debate over the redefinition of marriage led Americans to embrace.

A PDF file of this slide is available here.

Now, the information in the remainder of this article is critically important for Americans, and Christians in particular, to understand. Please read it carefully.

Just as eating rocks violates the law of “rockiness” (and thereby violates reality), so, too, does living “authentically” (according to the modern definition) violate what it means to be human (and reality as well). Further, the law’s turning a blind eye to the differences between men and women also violates what it means to be human, because what it means to be human is determined in many ways by the differences between men and women and how they relate to each other in light of those differences. Natural marriage is an inseparable part of these human interactions and relationships, so the law’s ignoring male and female differences is a clear affront to the natural order of things; it is an act of defiance against reality itself.

As you are aware, the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell on June 26, 2015, redefined marriage to include same-sex couples. This decision not only was a blatant act of judicial overreach, it also was, even more importantly, the ultimate expression of defiance against nature and against God (see the fifth item in the second numbered list in this article). Further, it represents a sea change in the legal interpretation of human relationships. If you’re tempted to wonder if this is true, recall that not that long ago, men who wanted to compete in women’s sports would be barred from doing so — no argument or debate, and no questions asked.

I have even greater proof, though, of what I am saying — thanks to David Fowler and the Family Action Council of Tennessee. FACT has published an article explaining why proposed legislation in Tennessee, “The Marital Contract Recording Act” (Senate Bill 562/House Bill 233), is needed. Among other things, the article highlights the differences between marriage certificates in Tennessee before and after the Obergefell ruling:

At this link you can see what the state’s Certificate of Marriage looked like prior to the Obergefell decision and how it now reads. It will be apparent that the state has eliminated the exclusivity of male and female as husband and wife.

At the very least, this poses a problem for a couple in Tennessee who believe in natural marriage, and for ministers and pastors who perform marriage ceremonies across the state who also believe that marriage is, and can be, only the union of one man and one woman.

Yet there are even more problems than this. As the article indicates, the state changed its marriage certificates because of the Obergefell ruling — despite the following reality, and despite the fact that Obergefell did not change, affect, or even touch the following law or a myriad of other laws relating to marriage and the family.

No state official has ever been prohibited by federal court order from adhering to this provision in Tennessee’s statutes, T.C. A. § 36-3-104(a)

(a) No county clerk or deputy clerk shall issue a marriage license until the applicants make an application in writing, stating the names, ages, addresses and social security numbers of both the proposed male and female contracting parties and the names and addresses of the parents, guardian or next of kin of both parties.

The article continues, stating that even though

no court has ever ordered the state to stop complying with the statute and the legislature has never changed it, state and local officials have unconstitutionally administered the statute as if the legislature had amended it to delete the requirement that applicants for a license be a “male and female.”

But the way the law is now being interpreted by the governor and county clerks creates a problem for people who believe marriage is a kind of reality defined exclusively and exhaustively in terms of the union of male and female as husband and wife. Belief in such realities is pervasive. For example, the meaning we ascribe to any thing, even sexual acts, is more than the thing itself.

These are the kinds of things that happen when a society accepts “the notion that the differences between men and women weren’t [—aren’t—] significant enough for the law to be concerned about.”

Spiraling Downward — Unless…

I hope you’re now beginning to see the depth of the abyss into which which radical autonomy has thrown us (and in some cases, into which we have willfully chosen to fall). We now have a government that has no reasonable grounding in reality and no reasonable understanding of what it means to be human. Nor does it have any reasonable understanding of the nature of human relationships.

Let these next observations be burned in your memory and on your brain. At the federal level in this, the post-Obergefell world, every married couple has the equivalent of a same-sex marriage. This is scary; yet it will remain the case unless and until states push back.

We are spiraling downward in this abyss. Can we slow our dissent? Is there yet hope that we even can reverse it? Yes, there is hope, but we must push back. We have to insist that marriage must once again be upheld and recognized as a lifelong union of one man and one woman. A good first step is to allow it to be recognized as such by those who believe this is what marriage ought to be — and is.

We’ll discuss some possibilities further in our next post. Until then, resolve to be an agent who will call this nation back to reality and to the sanity that only a recognition of reality can offer.

Also, pray for a national awakening, as well repentance on a national scale, to take place.

top image credit: Lightstock

CrossPolitic video featuring David Fowler:

Note:

¹See principles 1 and 2 in this article.

image credit: Seth Dillon

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